Logs:Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs

Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Erik
In Absentia	2023-03-28 Do you want to know the woman that bright girl grew into?
Location <NYC> Freaktown - the Bronx
This corner of Riverdale has been transformed into a de facto autonomous zone, a tiny island of mutant community vibrant and festive against the staid, respectable appearance of the wealthy neighborhood all around. The mansions are still mansions, but many have undergone renovations and expansions since liberated from their previous inhabitants. They and the plants and the light posts and street signs are adorned with layers of holiday decorations from a wide range of cultural and religious traditions, including string lights of every shape, color, and descript. A large communal house overlooks a cul de sac closed off to vehicle traffic, an open-air marketplace that, though semi-circular, is still called the "town square". The surrounding houses are just as grand, many of them renovated and expanded since they were relieved of their previous inhabitants, making more space for both residents and guests. Any mutant who comes calling can get a bed and a warm meal, and most nights there's at least one party going on somewhere around here. Dinner is wrapping up in the communal house, and people are starting to gather around the fire pit on the back patio. There's no formal storytime, but this is when stories are expected to turn up, and they almost always do. Anahita usually does, too, whether or not she's actually telling any stories. Tonight she's wearing old but sturdy overalls and a pink-purple-white flannel, a bright red shayla draped loose and open over her shoulders. "And that," she concludes, smiling bright to see her audience's incredulous amusement, "is how it really happened. Your turn, Clara." The young woman sitting next to her is still chuckling when she launches into her version of What Happened Last Thursday. At the distant edge of the circle, not sitting around the fire but instead leaned up against a nearby post, 'Max' has been observing storytime for a bit, now. His return to the Riverdale community has been a subtle thing these last weeks, quietly demonstrating that he does not have any intent of going Full Paranoid Crazy again. Part of that, has been some studious avoidance of Freaktown in the evenings -- which, by happenstance, seems to be when Anahita is most frequently present. Today though, they occupy the same space and time. Erik is dressed in much the same manner he was over a month ago --  chore jacket in plain grey, dark jeans, dark shirt, work boots, reading glasses tucked into a breast pocket, a driving cap in herringbone perched atop his (once again fading) red hair. This time he doesn't approach Anahita, though he seems to be considering it while fidgeting with the small box in his hand -- but whenever her gaze drifts to him, now that Clara has taken over the attention of the broader circle, Erik nods at her, seemingly waiting for something like permission to approach. A kind of stillness settles over Anahita when Erik nods at her, though her interest in Last Thursday seems undimmed. When Clara's (also highly improbable) recounting is done, she rises and announces she needs a drink. She meets Erik's eyes only very briefly, but the uptick of her brows is perhaps the granting of that permission. She leads him to one of the regular residential houses where, true to her word, she is pouring herself a drink. "Scotch?" she asks Erik without looking up at him, lifting a bottle of Talisker (10 year) and already fetching a second glass before he answers. There's a visible tension in her shoulders and a fine tremor in her hands, and she pour herself a rather generous portion for a woman so small. Erik follows after a moment, joining Anahita eventually in front of the liquor. "If you would." He doesn't move to take the glass yet, though, eyes trained on the tremor in Anahita's grip. He keeps his voice quiet, no false accent or affect on his voice this time for whatever appearance Magneto or Max might need to maintain. "I am -- truly sorry, Lien," he begins after a moment, "for the way I have conducted myself since your return." He looks like he might elaborate, but nothing else is forthcoming. The small box in his hand flips once, twice. "A gift does not make up for the ways I have failed you, but I bring one anyway." Erik sets the box down next to Anahita's glass. Anahita's head dips at the apology. After, she meets his eyes again for the first time since leaving the fire pit. "Thank you," only comes after a significant deliberation. "Reunion has been painful for us both, and I should have been gentler with you, regardless." She doesn't pick up either her drink or the box just yet. "Are you alright?" The question is very hesitant. "After you and Ion." She breaks off, shoulders pulling inward and expression shuttering. "I hope the incident doesn't cause you any lasting difficulties," comes out slightly mechanical, as though she'd rehearsed it. Erik shrugs. “I have weathered far worse disasters of my own make, and more lasting difficulties as well.” This, too, comes with no elaboration, the touch of maybe-shame in his voice only barely there. “We had a very — illuminating conversation, and did manage to come to mutual understanding.” He doesn’t move his arms much, just enough to pull his sleeves away from his wrists, bare of metal. “I do not want to see this community destroyed by my ill temper — we have enough enemies, it does me no good to imagine more. It’s your prospects I’m rather more worried about.” "I imagined you must have sorted things you, since you came back. It's just." Anahita does not continue that thought. She looks down at her glass, or maybe the box, but still makes no move to take up either of them. "I suspect this community is more resilient than you imagine," she says carefully, studying Erik's face. Her eyebrows lift slightly, and she sounds genuinely perplexed when she adds, "But, why are you worried about my prospects?" Erik’s frown is a small thing, the low hum of agreement he’s making at some odds with it. “Perhaps it is foolish of me to assume,” Erik concedes, hand drifting to lift his glass of scotch. “But after all I have heard you have been through since I last truly saw you, and not my own ghosts wearing your face — well. When my mind was clear again, I worried my actions might have… destabilized you, to say the least. I will be glad to be wrong on this score.” He lifts his glass in salute to Anahita. “And I might well be; I hardly know the woman before me now — only the bright girl you once were.” "I won't say it doesn't hurt, especially the accusation." Anahita does not emphasize the present tense, but it comes out somehow pointed all the same. "Not just because it came from a man I loved and respected, but one whose word carries such weight in our community. Still. Whatever my faults, I am strong and I am steady and I know my worth." She does finally pick up her glass, if only you answer Erik's salute. "I'm not sure what we're toasting here." A small hesitation. "Do you want to know the woman that bright girl grew into?" Erik’s head dips in a small bow of admission. “I apologize again, for -- desecrating the love I had for your mother, and for you.” Some tinge of nostalgia and grief there under Erik’s steady voice. He lifts the glass higher. "I hope that we are toasting a new beginning for us, for I do want to know who Anahita has become. But -- if you prefer, we may toast the end of Captain Ahab, and I will trouble you here no longer." His eyes dip to the box, still unopened. Almost bashfully, if only by comparison to his usual nature -- "I did spend some time looking for something that would speak to both girl and woman, limited as my knowledge is." "I can't honestly say I forgive you right now, but I do want to." Anahita is looking at the liquor in her glass, thoughtful. "It's been a year of new beginnings for me. I'd like to keep it up. So." Her gaze ticks past the whiskey to Erik again. "To a new beginning." She taps her glass to his and drinks deep. When she sets the whiskey down, she picks up the box instead and opens it. Inside the box, nestled among soft cloth padding, is smooth stone with bands and rings of white and red-rust browns running across its surface. Inside, sensible to Anahita's senses without external tools, are bubbles of water, trapped inside the agate. Anahita gives a small gasp of delight and breaks into a smile that Erik hasn't seen in nearly four decades. She doesn't levitate the stone the way her mother might have, but when she dumps it gently into her hand, it rolls itself over in her palm, its movement strange and fluid. It tumbles itself up to balance on the tips of her thumb, index, and middle fingers. "I'd have loved this when I was little, but I couldn't have felt the water. It's been in there for millions of years. Possibly billions." Her smile doesn't fade when she looks at Erik. "It's beautiful. Thank you." "I can wait for that day. To a new beginning," Erik echoes, sipping at his scotch. The glass is still at his lips when Anahita opens the box, obscuring the soft smile forming at her joy. "I daresay I wouldn't have known what to look for when you were a child, other than something smooth. But to be able see something magnificent hidden in ordinary..." He takes another sip, as if the alcohol will mask the tinge of nostalgia and melancholy in his tone, and sets the glass down. "Well. That's a gift we all wished for you. For all our children. I am glad you like it." He follows the tumble of the stone with his gaze, expression softening into something more reminiscent of the Erik Anahita used to know. Anahita cradles the stone loosely and brushes her thumb over its glossy surface. "I do still like smooth things. And I did learn to do that at--from you. All of you." She sips at her Scotch, looking less like she needs it now than when she poured it. "I don't know that I could have survived the last decade if I couldn't see wonders in even the darkest places. And I have seen such wonders." Her hand closes around the stone. "I don't know if I've quite got the hang of passing on that gift. But I try." She hesitates, her thumb still describing small circles on the stone as if she could polish it further. "It's one of the reasons I love telling stories, you know." Erik nods, less in agreement and more an encouragement to continue. “You had good teachers, but I believe you have surpassed all those that I knew, at least .” His grip on the glass tightens just a hair. “I have had little practice since Utopia in trying to pass along — anything, really.” His gaze ticks just a fraction north, north-east. “Now, for someone who loves a story and has had some practice opening minds in the last years — Starbuck lives not too far. Surely you remember.” He drinks longer this time, the tightening at his jaw quickly gone again. Anahita bows her head at the praise. "I know that mine is not the only opinion that matters in this, but I believe it's vital to pass along our history. Even when it's painful. Maybe especially when it's painful." Her next sip is more of a gulp. "I want to do it respectfully, with your blessing. With his too, if possible, though I haven't been to see him..." She trails off here, uncertain. The stone turns itself over and over in the loose cradle of her hand. Erik's head dips down, staring into his scotch. "I have no blessings to give. I set my condition out -- you have met it. I would ask you keep it, nothing more.” He finishes the glass with his next gulp and sets it down — when he lifts his gaze back to Anahita, there is a strange grief still fading from his neutral expression. “I am sure he would welcome a visit from you, Lien. The school — it is something to see.” Some pride there, low under the rest of his carefully even tone. "I will keep it," Anahita says evenly. "I don't know that I feel ready to see him, and I'm not so sure he'd welcome me. But I will make my way up there, by and by." She studies Erik, her expression unreadable. "I sometimes wish I'd known about the school earlier." She stops abruptly, perhaps questioning the wisdom of those words. After a brief contemplation she covers with a slow pull of Scotch, she continues, "I don't know that it would have made any difference. My son was nine when I went to jail, and his father..." Here she does decide against going on, pivoting instead to, "I was in Prometheus when he manifested. I couldn't have sent him to--to the school, even if I'd known of it all along. It's all very easy to wonder 'what if', but I'm glad that the school exists, and I am curious to see it." Their eyes meet, both parents considering each other for a quiet moment. Erik doesn't drop his attention -- his eyes narrow a touch at the mention of a son, his grip on his glass tightening by a fraction. "The school," he says after an almost-too-long-to-be-comfortable pause, "could have found him, once upon a time, regardless of if you knew it or not. I am sorry that they did not find your son." Erik finishes what remains in his glass slowly before continuing. "They did not find my -- Polaris, either. Her mother's influence, I suppose." He looks at his glass and seems disappointed to find it empty. "Now, as then, he cannot save everyone." Anahita's expression does not change much. Just a slow, perplexed crinkle of her brows. "Nobody can," is what she finally says. "That takes community. That takes solidarity. One of the great pitfalls of liberatory struggle is conflating leaders with movements." She drains her whiskey, and when she retrieves the bottle she refills Erik's glass first, then her own. "But I shouldn't be lecturing you about such things. Polaris is a remarkable young woman, and I doubt we'd have made it out of there without her." She takes a sip, and rolls the stone in her hand meditatively. "Mithra. My son's name is Mithra." “She is.” Erik’s agreement comes with some muted pride in the resonance of his voice. “Mithra.” When Erik repeats the name it’s with weight, a solemn sort of intensity in his eye. “Our grief is not the same, but… to be ripped from your child when they are small, to miss them growing — these are pains I know well.” He raises his glass again, now that it’s full again. “I hope you find your way to each other again.” Anahita raises her glass, as well. "So do I. To our children. May they never forget how to see the magnificent hidden in the ordinary." She looks momentarily like she might down the entire glass at once, but only sips. "I don't know if you'd rather go back to storytime, or if you've other plans entirely, but..." She nods at a rustic ceramic chess on a little table by the window. "...I've gotten a bit better than the bright girl I once was." “To our children,” Erik echos, his gaze a touch distant when he sips from his glass. It refocuses on the chess set. Erik’s lips twitch upwards, his eyes bright. “This was my plans tonight in their entirety. Now as then, very little would delight me more.” When he looks back at Anahita, it’s with a light smile she hasn’t seen in a very long time. “Perhaps this time, you will best me.”